I opened my mailbox a few weeks ago
and smiled from ear to ear. My friend Liz Worth had mailed me a copy of her new
book PostApoc. I was lucky enough to be asked to read the first six chapters or
so and give feedback while the book was being put together. So, I had a good
idea of how good the book was going to be, but not yet the full grasp of how
good it really was.
Book Description
Sole survivor
of a suicide pact, Ang has fallen into an underground music scene obsessed with
the idea of the end of the world. But when the end finally does come, Ang and
her friends don’t find the liberation they expected. Instead, those still alive
are starving, strung out and struggling to survive in a world that no longer
makes sense. As Ang navigates the world’s final days, her emotional and
physical instability mix with growing uncertainty and she begins to distrust
her perception in a place where nothing can ever be trusted for what it seems
to be. Bleak and haunting, PostApoc blends poetry and punk rock,
surrealism and stark imagery to tell the story of a girl wavering at the edge
of her sanity.
Liz is an incredible writer. One of
my favorite poets of all time. She sees the world without blinders and when her
pen scrolls ink softly across her paper, she doesn’t worry what words she uses.
This is one of the hardest things to do as a writer. It takes guts to write
this way. To write without fear of what some people might think or say. Anyone
can put words together and call themselves a writer but very few have what it
takes to pour everything out of them for the world to see.
This being said, I knew I was in for
a good read as soon as I started PostApoc. But I didn’t realize the journey of
thought it would evoke in me as I turned each page. I soon began to think where
would this book fit in a list of other books I’ve read? Page after page, word
after word, my mind kept wondering and comparing PostApoc to other books that
moved me in the past. I soon realized about halfway through, it was tying for
second place on my list of the best fiction I’ve ever read with Harry Crews’ Feast
Of Snakes. Number one on my list is Harry Crews’ Scar Lover.
I kept thinking as I read, is it fair
to hold Liz’s work up against such literary masterpieces as this? As the
perfectly put together paragraphs flowed into my mind I answered, yes it was.
This book made it to my list because it stirred every emotion in me. It filled
me with creative energy. Made me want to start writing my next book. PostApoc
did exactly what the others on the list did to me when I read them. It took me
to a world of literature few, very few, have the ability to create. And that is
why those works of art are still being read, and discussed to this day.
About three quarters of the way
through the book, I started to think about another book on my list, William S.
Burroughs’ Naked Lunch. Although, PostApoc is a book with teeth, sharp teeth,
like Feast Of Snakes, it also has an unfiltered undertow of dream state terror
pulling you into a world few could imagine. Was this what it was like for Allen
Ginsberg and other Beat writers to read Naked Lunch for the first time? Seeing
something so shockingly honest and creative put out for the world to read. Did
the Beats have the same excitement I do now reading PostApoc? Then my mind opened
to the possibility that I might be reading our generation’s version of Naked
Lunch.
As I turned the last page and read
the last words, I came to the conclusion PostApoc is our generation’s Feast Of
Snakes or Naked Lunch. On my list of best fiction ever written, it comes in at
second place. For books in the category of post-apocalyptic worlds, it’s number
one as far as I’m concerned. Many writers have come close, but Worth’s words
allow you to choke on the sorrowful truth of it all, and smell the death in the
wind as it blows its dark fear over what is left of that bleak world.
The release date is October 15. You can
preorder her book here http://www.amazon.ca/PostApoc-Liz-Worth/dp/1926942299
